Lining up all the neighbourhood kids for a group photo that summer in 1984 was quite the spectacle. My younger brother and I were about to fly half-way around the world for the very first time and mom, of course, just had to have a picture. Our parents had immigrated to Canada not long before and worked extraordinarily hard to build a new life among strangers, even though their hearts never really left home. A new language and a new culture, but here we were flanked by our gracious neighbours who made the adjustment that much easier for them. I clearly remember my excitement standing there all dressed up, watching my mother squint through her viewfinder in the blazing afternoon sun while all of us squirmed impatiently. Our Yugoslav Airlines flight to Zagreb left Pearson that evening and, exhausted from all the preparation, I nodded off watching the last lights of Toronto fade beneath the clouds.

Being only five years old, it was difficult to understand where exactly we were going. I spent many hours staring at my mother's old olive-green Atlas Svijeta trying to figure out how we were going to "Hrvatska" when the bluish blob on the map opposite Italy was labelled Jugoslavija. Only seven short years later would I be hit with the painful realization that not only did no one else understand, but no one really cared either.

Little did I know then as a child that the indelible images etched in my mind from this particular trip would in time become steadfast buoys in the raging seas of war; beacons lighting a shaky path of understanding through the swirling bloody chaos. The flow of history is a strange force to immerse oneself in, yet physical "flow" itself is something we are all intimately familiar with. Although a single direction is implied, one would be foolish to ignore the numerous eddies and vortices, no matter how seemingly insignificant. It is these feedback currents and rare poles of stabilty that serve as sources of information and points of orientation in the torrent that constantly threatens to sweep us away.

~*~

Every kid dreams of being a police officer occasionally, but my uncle actually was one. My brother and I watched in awe as our father's John Wayne-like brother swaggered in wearing his full uniform that first evening we came over to visit. His piercing blue eyes at first unsettled his little nephews from Canada, but his stern demeanour quickly melted away as he set two police caps down in front of us. *Real* police caps! I remember just staring at them in complete shock for a few seconds before both of us broke into the grandest smiles we had ever smiled in our young lives. Naturally, we wore those caps everywhere for the rest of our stay.

~*~

The village in which my father was born once had a population of 400 people, living with the same self-sufficiency they had since the Croatian Slavs first settled the region in the 6th century. Today, after three wars and condemnation to 45 years of slavery by Yalta in the last century alone, only 18 of the original inhabitants still live there. What was once my father's childhood home, the beloved home he left to further his education among those who would taunt the gifted country boy, the land his father endlessly worked until he had lost his will to live, is now a place for weekend cottages and picnics. The small white-washed church is still there though, bearing the ineffaceable marks of history as it stands watch over the modest graves of its devoted parishoners. Like my father before me, as a child I gazed upon the numerous World War II-era bullet holes in its facade absolutely fascinated, yet also deeply disturbed. My father had been a small child during the Second World War, much like I was that summer in 1984, and he probably has some memory of the church being fired upon right beside his house. His own indelible image of those tough years was that of a young German soldier sharing his meagre butter ration with him--an act of kindness and common humanity he had never forgotten. Fourteen years after my first trip, as a young adult I would stand in the very same spot once again, only this time the little church would have twice as many bullets embedded in its walls.

~*~

My mother's family comes from an industrial city just southeast of the capital, with a major refinery and steelworks. I would sit on the balcony with a pair of toy binoculars and simply be mesmerized by the flaming smokestacks that towered in the distance. I also used to get sick quite easily as a child and was blissfully unaware of their possible connection to the bronchitis that plagued me throughout our trip. Environmental concerns, in most likelihood, weren't very high on the communists' collective agenda, especially given that Tito was dead and the wheels of independence had been turning for well over a decade. This was the city in which my mother's grandfather, a World War I veteran and a true gentleman of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, strolled about in his impeccable white suit in silent defiance, refusing to wear the drab worker's costume of the proletariat. This was the city in which my mother's father, drafted into the Croatian Home Guard during World War II, found himself on the wrong side of history and narrowly escaped an early death as the Partisans brutally implemented their post-war plans. This was the city in which my mother, as a little girl, cheerfully sang old national hymns in public, much to the amusement of her neighbours who would have been thrown in prison for such an affront to "unity and brotherhood". It would be many years before I returned to this city of resistance, not only to once again gaze upon its eternal flames, but also to see my mother's childhood friend limp over with his new veteran's certificate.

~*~

"Please... don't draw that."

My yellow crayon paused above the large red star I was in the midst of outlining, centred on a vibrant blue-white-and-red tricolour. My uncle's expression wasn't one of anger, but of a deep sadness I could not understand. In my childish innocence I had simply drawn the flag I had seen flying in many places and cheerfully assumed that everyone would be delighted with my efforts.

"Just let him draw... he's young. He doesn't know."

My mother turned from her brother and lovingly brushed her hand through my hair. I finished the picture, but pushed it aside soon afterwards.

~*~

Visiting my aunt and her family was always highly anticipated as they lived way up in a highrise apartment that overlooked all of Zagreb and Sljeme, the rolling green mountain against which the city rests. Distant flaming columns were nothing compared to the view that awaited me up there, but I would have to ride the blue coffin up eighteen floors before I could run into her loving arms and head for the window--no free lunch indeed. As I pressed my forehead against the glass in the kitchen, the industrial flames of Sisak gave way to blinking air traffic lights and vast, pulsating civilization below. Political power may have been concentrated in Belgrade, but Zagreb was the cultural and economic centre of the Frankensteinian federation.

It would only be eleven years later that the very rooftops I had gazed upon with such wonder would be rocketed ruthlessly as we watched helplessly from across the Atlantic. Each hit on our ancient capital a dagger through our hearts... and then the pictures. That poor lady lying in a bloody pool on the cobblestones opposite her tram could have easily been my aunt, my cousin...

~*~

"I'm really sorry, but... we can't take the caps home with us."

The tears were instantaneous. We had to leave the greatest gifts ever with our uncle and couldn't even begin to understand why. They were just hats and there was plenty of room for them in our suitcases--it all just didn't make any sense whatsoever.

My confusion would continue as I grew up in the following years, struggling to explain Croatia, Yugoslavia, and the whole tragic mess to my Canadian friends, since even I couldn't completely wrap my head around all its complexities. It was only after much more experience and study that things simply began to click into place and I came to realization that perhaps the explanation, although dependent on a ridiculous amount of historical detail, wasn't so difficult after all. On the other hand, to this day I'm still not sure how in the mid-80s my mother would have explained the enormous gold-trimmed red stars--on police caps no less--to Canada Customs.